With the first batches arriving in 1980, the Sierra Nevada Brewery takes its brewing quite seriously, but has a major commitment to sustainable practices as well. What sort of sustainable practices? It’s a laundry list… here are some highlights:

There are a good number of reviews, and many of them describe the big plans for the Gaia brand, but even with coverage in bohemian.com, cnet, and USA Today details on sustainability features of the food service operation at Gaia are pretty sparse.

The backstory on Gaia’s development apparently starts in a restaurant – where an effort to save water caught Mr. Chang’s attention. 8 years and $20 million later, a hotel was born – and now there are more (in Anderson, CA and soon, Merced, CA).

Some restaurant sustainability metrics are assembled by Cork and Knife

The average American meal has a shockingly large carbon footprint, usually traveling 1, 500 miles to the plate and emitting large amounts of CO2 in the process, according to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Each meal created produces 275 pounds of waste a day, making restaurants the worst aggressors of greenhouse gas emissions in retail industry, says the Boston-based Green Restaurant Association [GRA], a non-profit organization that works to create an ecologically sustainable restaurant industry.

A recent NRA [National Restaurant Association] study shows utility costs are a big line item for restaurateurs, accounting for a median of between 2.3 percent and 3.6 percent of sales, depending on the type of operation.

According to Zagat’s 2007 America’s Top Restaurants, 65 percent of surveyors said they would pay more for food that has been sustainably raised or procured. According to 2007 National Restaurant Association research, 62 percent of adults said they would likely choose a restaurant based on its environmental friendliness.

The rising cost of gasoline may impact the revenue side of the equation for food service operations, but the expense side faces a similar, if less in-your-face challenge. As gasoline prices approach the inflation-adjusted prices of the 1981 oil crisis era, global wheat stocks are at their lowest level since the 1979. With both sides of the business equation in play (and generally beyond the control of a restaurateur), efficiency is one of the few places left to wiggle.

A very limited-access venue, available only to members of the Tahoe Mountain Club (and “Friends of the Goose”), the Wild Goose Restaurant in Tahoe Vista, California scored LEED certification [pdf] for commercial interiors in December 2005 based primarily on lighting and local/recycled materials use.

Some restaurants go through a lot of wine… and a lot of wine can mean a lot of cork. You should think about doing something with them.

Currently lighting up the blogs, Recycle Cork USA in York, Pennsylvania is promoting a “Korks 4 Kids” charity program to collect corks for children’s charities. There isn’t a lot of information on this organization outside the website and the various blogs pointing to it. They’ve been around a little more than a year.